No injuries or environmental contamination apparently resulted after a drum of radioactive waste overheated and breached Wednesday at the Department of Energy’s Idaho Site, cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho said.
The accident occurred Wednesday evening at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex (RWMC) Accelerated Retrieval Project (ARP 5) containment structure before 11 p.m. MDT Thursday, Fluor said in a news release.
The seal on the 55-gallon drum failed due to high temperatures and increased pressure. As a result, the drum was “smoldering” when the contents inside contacted the air, Fluor said.
Three Idaho National Laboratory firefighters responded to a fire alarm at 11:35 p.m. MDT Wednesday, doused the smoldering drum, and moved it away from 12 others located nearby, Fluor said.
The fire crew members had some “minor external radioactive contamination that was subsequently removed from their skin,” according to the news release. There was no initial indication the firefighters had any internal contamination, but they were taken to Idaho Falls medical facilities for further examination.
Initial tests turned up no radioactivity outside the building, which has air filters designed to trap contamination inside. No workers were in the building at the time of the accident.
Two Fluor press releases issued Thursday did not say what might have caused the elevated temperatures for the drum. The Idaho Falls Post Register and The Associated Press said the drums contained a mixture of solvents and that had earlier been transported to Idaho from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado.
The Radioactive Waste Management Complex is located 55 miles west of Idaho Falls on the Idaho National Laboratory site.
The building is still off-limits for now. Fluor is planning to enter the building and start working on a recovery plan. Fluor Idaho manages the Idaho Cleanup Project under a five-year, $1.4 billion contract.
